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Joe Biden takes aim at ‘Vouchercare’

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Wading into Paul Ryan territory, Vice President Joe Biden delivered a blistering critique of the GOP vice presidential nominee’s Medicare proposal and warned that the Republican ticket would turn the health care system for seniors into “Vouchercare.”

As he campaigned in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin on Sunday, Biden hammered Ryan and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for endorsing a Medicare proposal that would give seniors subsidies to purchase private health care plans. Biden, echoing a common Democratic attack, accused Republicans of wanting to “end the guarantee of Medicare.”

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“Ladies and gentleman, it’s just that simple: We are for Medicare; they are for Vouchercare,” Biden told the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd of about 1,000 at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay.

In his criticisms, Biden evoked his mother, Catherine, who campaigned with him in 2008 and died two years later at the age of 92. (At Sunday’s rally, Biden misspoke, saying his mother died at 93.)

“My mom was a smart woman,” he said. “But, my mom, I can’t picture handing her a voucher at age 80 and saying — you go out in the insurance market and you figure out what’s best for you.”

By demanding a repeal of the health care law — the Obama administration’s top domestic priority achievement — Republicans would put insurance companies “back in charge of our health care,” bring steep cuts to Medicaid and drop millions of young adults from their parents’ health care plans, Biden said.

“Folks, this is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said. “No, for real. This is a different breed of cat. This is not even Mitt Romney’s father’s Republican Party.”

During the roughly 25-minute speech, Biden also rattled off a list of criticisms of the Republican Party on issues ranging from taxes to the deficit to foreign policy, particularly lambasting the GOP for demanding “massive” tax cuts for the rich.

“Folks, we’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends,” Biden said. “It ends in lost jobs, stagnant wages, watching the equity in your home evaporate, watching your retirement account decimate. It ends in a catastrophe for the middle class. It ends in the great recession of 2008.”

At the Republican convention, “they talked about the state of the nation and all these terrible things that happened in 2009,” Biden added. “How do they think they got there? No, no really. Do they think we have amnesia?”

Readers' Comments (118)

Think about it, folks. Vice President Biden has served our country & the folks in Delaware for THIRTY SIX straight years. He may have a little french in him, but to lie? No way. He doesn't bend the facts like that other guy (Lyin' Ryan). Ask the people who live in Delaware & they'll tell you they couldn't find anyone better (anywhere). And don't forget the Bidens' volunteer military service. How many deferments between Romney, his sons, & Ryan? Can't count them on one hand. They don't represent me in any way. And while we're at it, get rid of McConnell so we can get something done the next four years. Obama/Biden-2013!

A reasonable person would expect the media to do their job and correct the Democrats whenever they try to represent Ryan's original Budget proposal as the plan that Romney is proposing. Ryan's original Plan was Amended even before he was picked for the VP slot, and there are additional differences to Romney's own Plan--which is the formal Plan of the Ticket.

The Media know exactly what it is doing when it lets that misrepresentation be made over and over again. without correction. They either aren't very bright and don't know that there are differences between Ryan's original Plan and Romney's current proposal's. Or, and more likely, they are aiding and abetting Obama and the Dems on confusing and/or trying to sway the public on this critical issue, to benefit "their" Candidate Obama.

As an independent, I have come to question anything this foot-in-mouth VP says. Now he is trying to sell Ryan's original, long since modified, healthcare plan as Romney's plan. If the Democrat's wanted to impress me as a responsible party, they would hide this gasbag away from the public...

The Medicare Killers By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: August 30, 2012 556 Comments Paul Ryan’s speech Wednesday night may have accomplished one good thing: It finally may have dispelled the myth that he is a Serious, Honest Conservative. Indeed, Mr. Ryan’s brazen dishonesty left even his critics breathless.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

Some of his fibs were trivial but telling, like his suggestion that President Obama is responsible for a closed auto plant in his hometown, even though the plant closed before Mr. Obama took office. Others were infuriating, like his sanctimonious declaration that “the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” This from a man proposing savage cuts in Medicaid, which would cause tens of millions of vulnerable Americans to lose health coverage.

And Mr. Ryan — who has proposed $4.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, versus only about $1.7 trillion in specific spending cuts — is still posing as a deficit hawk.

But Mr. Ryan’s big lie — and, yes, it deserves that designation — was his claim that “a Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare.” Actually, it would kill the program.

The myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished

"The problem with Socialism, is that eventually you run out of other people's money" - Margaret Thatcher

By Janet Daley9:00PM BST 01 Sep 2012

The question that will demand an answer lies at the heart of the economic crisis from which the West seems unable to recover. It is so profoundly threatening to the governing consensus of Britain and Europe as to be virtually unutterable here, so we shall have to rely on the robustness of the US political class to make the running.

What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union.

Or else democratically elected governments can be replaced by puppet austerity regimes which are free to ignore the protests of the populace when they are deprived of their promised entitlements. You can, in other words, decide to debauch the currency which underwrites the market economy, or you can dispense with democracy. Both of these possible solutions are currently being tried in the European Union, whose leaders are reduced to talking sinister gibberish in order to evade the obvious conclusion: the myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished. This is the defining political problem of the early 21st century.

Paul Ryan’s speech Wednesday night may have accomplished one good thing: It finally may have dispelled the myth that he is a Serious, Honest Conservative. Indeed, Mr. Ryan’s brazen dishonesty left even his critics breathless

Wow I'm shocked a liberal doesn't agree with Paul Ryan - you're point is? This is also a person who believes in income distribution same as Obama so he will say anything to get him elected. Zero Credibility on this subject.